National Geographic (curiously at nationalgeographic.com, rather
than .org or .gov) reports that sharks have genes for creating fingers
and toes:
http://tinyurl.com/29mzob
"Researchers identified genetic activity in spotted catsharks embryos
that signal the creation of digits. The discovery pushes back the
date of the evolutionary "fin to limb" advance by some 135 million
years."
So contrary to creationist claims that there is no way genes could
arise or develop to enable fish to grow limbs and exit the water,
these genes already existed for other purposes, requiring nothing more
than modification to develop an organism's body for that first big
step.
Evolutionists have no problem with this, of course, because they first
look at the evidence and see where it points before developing their
theories.
It's a finger in the eye for creation-ID-ists, however. Now they're
stuck with explaining why a perfect designer, who created organisms in
situ, perfectly designed for their environment, would lard them up
with genes (dare I say junk DNA?!) they should never need.
There are those, like Michael Behe, who seem to be claiming that the
designer front-loaded genomes with all the material they would need to
evolve, but not only is this wasteful, it's also contrary to the
evidence.
To begin with, unused genetic material deteriorates rather rapidly.
How is a single-celled organism loaded with genes for terrestrial (as
opposed to aquatic) use supposed to keep them intact when they are not
used at all for several billion years?
How did the designer know there would even *be* land two billion years
on? Was that also in the design?
Secondly, all that extra genetic material places a huge demand on the
energy requirements for a single-celled organism. The organisms that
best survived and reproduced would be the ones with the "lightest"
genome. The extra genes would have disappeared rapidly before they
could ever benefit the first terrestrial organisms.
Until and unless the design proponents can come up with the science
behind this, then there is no design. Only evolution.
Budikka
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